Alcohol and Diabetes
Ask our expert if it's safe to have an occasional drink
What Is a Drink?
- 5 ounces of wine
- 12 ounces of beer
- 1 1/2 ounces of distilled spirits
Our expert is diabetes educator and dietitian Deborah Maurer of Lehigh Valley Health Network's Helwig Health and Diabetes Center.
Q: I have diabetes, but I’d still like to have an alcoholic drink once in awhile. Is it safe?
A: Talk to your doctor first; you may be taking medications that don’t mix with alcohol. If you get your doctor’s OK, you may be able to have one or two drinks with a meal. Even so, drinking alcohol can boost your risk of hypoglycemia, so you need to be careful. Why?
- Alcohol interferes with the way your liver functions. Your body views alcohol as a toxin (poison), so your liver tries to remove it from your system. But while your liver is busy getting rid of the alcohol, it forgets to do its other job, which is to dump stored-up sugar into your body. Without that stored-up sugar, you run the risk of developing hypoglycemia.
- You may feel less inhibited when you drink alcohol. Fewer inhibitions may cause you to be less aware of low blood sugar symptoms—and less likely to test yourself.
- You may also experience hypoglycemia if you take medication to help lower your blood sugar, such as insulin, glipizide or glyburide.
To avoid low blood sugar, it’s better to drink alcohol with your meals, rather than before or after. I also suggest you test your blood sugar more often when you’re drinking alcohol to make sure you keep your sugar numbers within normal ranges.
This page last updated 12/30/08 02:34 PM
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